Chapter 7

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_ CHAPTER VII

And so, in as sudden a fashion as he had granted the "month's trial," did Jed grant the permanent tenure of his property. The question of rent, which might easily have been, with the ordinary sort of landlord, a rock in the channel, turned out to be not even a pebble. Captain Hunniwell, who was handling the business details, including the making out of the lease, was somewhat troubled.

"But, Jed," he protested, "you've GOT to listen to me. She won't pay forty a month, although she agrees with me that for a furnished house in a location like this it's dirt cheap. Of course she's takin' it for all the year, which does make consider'ble difference, although from May to October, when the summer folks are here, I could get a hundred and forty a month just as easy as . . . Eh? I believe you ain't heard a word I've been sayin'. Gracious king! If you ain't enough to drive the mate of a cattle boat into gettin' religion! Do you hear me? I say she won't pay--"

Jed, who was sitting before the battered old desk in the corner of his workshop, did not look around, but he waved his right hand, the fingers of which held the stump of a pencil, over his shoulder.

"Ssh-h, sh-h, Sam!" he observed, mildly. "Don't bother me now; please don't, there's a good feller. I'm tryin' to work out somethin' important."

"Well, this is important. Or, if it ain't, there's plenty that is important waitin' for me up at the bank. I'm handlin' this house business as a favor to you. If you think I've got nothin' else to do you're mistaken."

Jed nodded, contritely, and turned to face his friend. "I know it, Sam," he said, "I know it. I haven't got the least mite of excuse for troublin' you."

"You ain't troublin' me--not that way. All I want of you is to say yes or no. I tell you Mrs. Armstrong thinks she can't afford to pay forty a month."

"Yes."

"And perhaps she can't. But you've got your own interests to think about. What shall I do?"

"Yes."

"YES! What in time are you sayin' yes for?"

"Hum? Eh? Oh, excuse me, Sam; I didn't mean yes, I mean no."

"Gracious king!"

"Well--er--er--," desperately, "you told me to say yes or no, so I--"

"See here, Jed Winslow, HAVE you heard what I've been sayin'?"

"Why, no, Sam; honest I ain't. I've run across an idea about makin' a different kind of mill--one like a gull, you know, that'll flap its wings up and down when the wind blows--and--er--I'm afraid my head is solid full of that and nothin' else. There generally ain't more'n room for one idea in my head," he added, apologetically. "Sometimes that one gets kind of cramped."

The captain snorted in disgust. Jed looked repentant and distressed.

"I'm awful sorry, Sam," he declared. "But if it's about that house of mine--rent or anything, you just do whatever Mrs. Armstrong says."

"Whatever SHE says? Haven't you got anything to say?"

"No, no-o, I don't know's I have. You see, I've settled that she and Babbie are to have the house for as long as they want it, so it's only fair to let them settle the rest, seems to me. Whatever Mrs. Armstrong wants to pay'll be all right. You just leave it to her."

Captain Sam rose to his feet.

"I've a dum good mind to," he declared "'Twould serve you right if she paid you ten cents a year." Then, with a glance of disgust at the mountain of old letters and papers piled upon the top of the desk where his friend was at work, he added: "What do you clean that desk of yours with--a shovel?"

The slow smile drifted across the Winslow face. "I cal'late that's what I should have to use, Sam," he drawled, "if I ever cleaned it."

The captain and the widow agreed upon thirty-five dollars a month. It developed that she owned their former house in Middleford and that the latter had been rented for a very much higher rent. "My furniture," she added, "that which I did not sell when we gave up housekeeping, is stored with a friend there. I know it is extravagant, my hiring a furnished house, but I'm sure Mr. Winslow wouldn't let this one unfurnished and, besides, it would be a crime to disturb furniture and rooms which fit each other as these do. And, after all, at the end of a year I may wish to leave Orham. Of course I hope I shall not, but I may."

Captain Sam would have asked questions concerning her life in Middleford, in fact he did ask a few, but the answers he received were unsatisfactory. Mrs. Armstrong evidently did not care to talk on the subject. The captain thought her attitude a little odd, but decided that the tragedy of her husband's death must be the cause of her reticence. Her parting remarks on this occasion furnished an explanation.

"If you please, Captain Hunniwell," she said, "I would rather you did not tell any one about my having lived in Middleford and my affairs there. I have told very few people in Orham and I think on the whole it is better not to. What is the use of having one's personal history discussed by strangers?"

She was evidently a trifle embarrassed and confused as she said this, for she blushed just a little. Captain Sam decided that the blush was becoming. Also, as he walked back to the bank, he reflected that Jed Winslow's tenant was likely to have her personal history and affairs discussed whether she wished it or not. Young women as attractive as she were bound to be discussed, especially in a community the size of Orham. And, besides, whoever else she may have told, she certainly had told him that Middleford had formerly been her home and he had told Maud and Jed. Of course they would say nothing if he asked them, but perhaps they had told it already. And why should Mrs. Armstrong care, anyway?

"Let folks talk," he said that evening, in conversation with his daughter. "Let 'em talk, that's my motto. When they're lyin' about me I know they ain't lyin' about anybody else, that's some comfort. But women folks, I cal'late, feel different."

Maud was interested and a little suspicious.

"You don't suppose, Pa," she said, "that this Mrs. Armstrong has a past, do you?"

"A past? What kind of a thing is a past, for thunder sakes?"

"Why, I mean a--a--well, has she done something she doesn't want other people to know; is she trying to hide something, like--well, as people do in stories?"

"Eh? Oh, in the books! I see. Well, young woman, I cal'late the first thing for your dad to do is to find out what sort of books you read. A past! Ho, ho! I guess likely Mrs. Armstrong is a plaguey sight more worried about the future than she is about the past. She has lived the past already, but she's got to live the future and pay the bills belongin' to it, and that's no triflin' job in futures like these days."

Needless to say Jed Winslow did no speculating concerning his tenant's "past." Having settled the question of that tenancy definitely and, as he figured it, forever, he put the matter entirely out of his mind and centered all his energies upon the new variety of mill, the gull which was to flap its wings when the wind blew. Barbara was, of course, much interested in the working out of this invention, and her questions were many. Occasionally Mrs. Armstrong came into the shop. She and Jed became better acquainted.

The acquaintanceship developed. Jed formed a daily habit of stopping at the Armstrong door to ask if there were any errands to be done downtown. "Goin' right along down on my own account, ma'am," was his invariable excuse. "Might just as well run your errands at the same time." Also, whenever he chopped a supply of kindling wood for his own use he chopped as much more and filled the oilcloth-covered box which stood by the stove in the Armstrong kitchen. He would not come in and sit down, however, in spite of Barbara's and her mother's urgent invitation; he was always too "busy" for that.

But the time came when he did come in, actually come in and sit down to a meal. Barbara, of course, was partially responsible for this amazing invitation, but it was Heman Taylor's old brindle tomcat which really brought it to pass. The cat in question was a disreputable old scalawag, with tattered ears and a scarred hide, souvenirs of fights innumerable, with no beauty and less morals, and named, with appropriate fitness, "Cherub."

It was a quarter to twelve on a Sunday morning and Jed was preparing his dinner. The piece de resistance of the dinner was, in this instance, to be a mackerel. Jed had bought the mackerel of the fish peddler the previous afternoon and it had been reposing on a plate in the little ancient ice-chest which stood by the back door of the Winslow kitchen. Barbara, just back from Sunday school and arrayed in her best, saw that back door open and decided to call. Jed, as always, was glad to see her.

"You're getting dinner, aren't you, Mr. Winslow?" she observed.

Jed looked at her over his spectacles. "Yes," he answered. "Unless somethin' happens I'm gettin' dinner."

His visitor looked puzzled.

"Why, whatever happened you would be getting dinner just the same, wouldn't you?" she said. "You might not have it, but you'd be getting it, you know."

Jed took the mackerel out of the ice-chest and put the plate containing it on the top of the latter. "We-ell," he drawled, "you can't always tell. I might take so long gettin' it that, first thing I knew, 'twould be supper."

Humming a hymn he took another dish from the ice-chest and placed it beside the mackerel plate.

"What's that?" inquired Barbara.

"That? Oh, that's my toppin'-off layer. That's a rice puddin', poor man's puddin', some folks call it. I cal'late your ma'd call it a man's poor puddin', but it makes good enough ballast for a craft like me." He began singing again.

"'I know not, yea, I know not
What bliss awaits me there.
Di, doo de di di doo de--'"

Breaking off to suggest: "Better stay and eat along with me to-day, hadn't you, Babbie?"

Barbara tried hard not to seem superior.

"Thank you," she said, "but I guess I can't. We're going to have chicken and lemon jelly." Then, remembering her manners, she added: "We'd be awful glad if you'd have dinner with us, Mr. Winslow."

Jed shook his head.

"Much obliged," he drawled, "but if I didn't eat that mackerel, who would?"

The question was answered promptly. While Mr. Winslow and his small caller were chatting concerning the former's dinner, another eager personality was taking a marked interest in a portion of that dinner. Cherub, the Taylor cat, abroad on a foraging expedition, had scented from his perch upon a nearby fence a delicious and appetizing odor. Following his nose, literally, Cherub descended from the fence and advanced, sniffing as he came. The odor was fish, fresh fish. Cherub's green eyes blazed, his advance became crafty, strategical, determined. He crept to the Winslow back step, he looked up through the open door, he saw the mackerel upon its plate on the top of the ice-chest.

"If I didn't eat that mackerel," drawled Jed, "who would?"

There was a swoop through the air, a scream from Barbara, a crash-- two crashes, a momentary glimpse of a brindle cat with a mackerel crosswise in its mouth and the ends dragging on the ground, a rattle of claws on the fence. Then Jed and his visitor were left to gaze upon a broken plate on the floor, an overturned bowl on top of the ice-chest, and a lumpy rivulet of rice pudding trickling to the floor.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" cried Barbara, wringing her hands in consternation.

Jed surveyed the ruin of the "poor man's pudding" and gazed thoughtfully at the top of the fence over which the marauder had disappeared.

"Hum," he mused. "H-u-u-m. . . . Well, I did cal'late I could get a meal out of sight pretty fast myself, but--but--I ain't in that critter's class."

"But your dinner!" wailed Barbara, almost in tears. "He's spoiled ALL your dinner! Oh, the BAD thing! I hate that Cherub cat! I HATE him!"

Mr. Winslow rubbed his chin. "We-e-ll," he drawled again. "He does seem to have done what you might call a finished job. H-u-u-m! . . . 'Another offensive on the--er--no'theast'ard front; all objectives attained.' That's the way the newspapers tell such things nowadays, ain't it? . . . However, there's no use cryin' over spilt--er--puddin'. Lucky there's eggs and milk aboard the ship. I shan't starve, anyhow."

Barbara was aghast. "Eggs and milk!" she repeated. "Is THAT all you've got for Sunday dinner, Mr. Winslow? Why, that's awful!"

Jed smiled and began picking up the fragments of the plate. He went to the closet to get a broom and when he came out again the young lady had vanished.

But she was back again in a few minutes, her eyes shining.

"Mr. Winslow," she said, "Mamma sent me to ask if you could please come right over to our house. She--she wants to see you."

Jed regarded her doubtfully. "Wants to see me?" he repeated. "What for?"

The child shook her head; her eyes sparkled more than ever. "I'm not sure," she said, "but I think there's something she wants you to do."

Wondering what the something might be, Jed promised to be over in a minute or two. Barbara danced away, apparently much excited. Mr. Winslow, remembering that it was Sunday, performed a hasty toilet at the sink, combed his hair, put on his coat and walked across the yard. Barbara met him at the side door of the house.

"Mamma's in the dining-room," she said. "Come right in, Mr. Winslow."

So Jed entered the dining-room, to find the table set and ready, with places laid for three instead of two, and Mrs. Armstrong drawing back one of three chairs. He looked at her.

"Good mornin', ma'am," he stammered. "Babbie, she said--er--she said there was somethin' you wanted me to do."

The lady smiled. "There is," she replied. "Babbie has told me what happened to your dinner, and she and I want you to sit right down and have dinner with us. We're expecting you, everything is ready, and we shall--yes, we shall be hurt if you don't stay. Shan't we, Babbie?"

Barbara nodded vigorously. "Awf'ly," she declared; "'specially Petunia. You will stay, won't you, Mr. Winslow--please?"

Poor Jed! His agitation was great, his embarrassment greater and his excuses for not accepting the invitation numerous if not convincing. But at last he yielded and sat reluctantly down to the first meal he had eaten in that house for five years.

Mrs. Armstrong, realizing his embarrassment, did not urge him to talk and Barbara, although she chattered continuously, did not seem to expect answers to her questions. So Jed ate a little, spoke a little, and thought a great deal. And by the time dinner was over some of his shyness and awkwardness had worn away. He insisted upon helping with the dishes and, because she saw that he would be hurt if she did not, his hostess permitted him to do so.

"You see, ma'am," he said, "I've been doin' dishes for a consider'ble spell, more years than I like to count. I ought to be able to do 'em fair to middlin' well. But," he added, as much to himself as to her, "I don't know as that's any sign. There's so many things I ought to be able to do like other folks--and can't. I'm afraid you may not be satisfied, after all, ma'am," he went on. "I suppose you're a kind of an expert, as you might say."

She shook her head. "I fear I'm no expert, Mr. Winslow," she answered, just a little sadly, so it seemed to him. "Barbara and I are learning, that is all."

"Nora used to do the dishes at home," put in Barbara. "Mamma hardly ever--"

"Hush, dear," interrupted her mother. "Mr. Winslow wouldn't be interested."

After considerable urging Jed consented to sit a while in the living-room. He was less reluctant to talk by this time and, the war creeping into the conversation, as it does into all conversations nowadays, they spoke of recent happenings at home and abroad. Mrs. Armstrong was surprised to find how well informed her landlord was concerning the world struggle, its causes and its progress.

"Why, no, ma'am," he said, in answer to a remark of hers; "I ain't read it up much, as I know of, except in the newspapers. I ain't an educated man. Maybe--" with his slow smile--"maybe you've guessed as much as that already."

"I know that you have talked more intelligently on this war than any one else I have heard since I came to this town," she declared, emphatically. "Even Captain Hunniwell has never, in my hearing, stated the case against Germany as clearly as you put it just now; and I have heard him talk a good deal."

Jed was evidently greatly pleased, but he characteristically tried not to show it. "Well, now, ma'am," he drawled, "I'm afraid you ain't been to the post office much mail times. If you'd just drop in there some evenin' and hear Gabe Bearse and Bluey Batcheldor raise hob with the Kaiser you'd understand why the confidence of the Allies is unshaken, as the Herald gave out this mornin'."

A little later he said, reflectively:

"You know, ma'am, it's an astonishin' thing to me, I can't get over it, my sittin' here in this house, eatin' with you folks and talkin' with you like this."

Mrs. Armstrong smiled. "I can't see anything so very astonishing about it," she said.

"Can't you?"

"Certainly not. Why shouldn't you do it--often? We are landlord and tenant, you and I, but that is no reason, so far as I can see, why we shouldn't be good neighbors."

He shook his head.

"I don't know's you quite understand, ma'am," he said. "It's your thinkin' of doin' it, your askin' me and--and WANTIN' to ask me that seems so kind of odd. Do you know," he added, in a burst of confidence, "I don't suppose that, leavin' Sam Hunniwell out, another soul has asked me to eat at their house for ten year. Course I'm far from blamin' 'em for that, you understand, but--"

"Wait. Mr. Winslow, you had tenants in this house before?"

"Yes'm. Davidson, their names was."

"And did THEY never invite you here?"

Jed looked at her, then away, out of the window. It was a moment or two before he answered. Then--

"Mrs. Armstrong," he said, "you knew, I cal'late, that I was--er-- kind of prejudiced against rentin' anybody this house after the Davidsons left?"

The lady, trying not to smile, nodded.

"Yes," she replied, "I--well, I guessed as much."

"Yes'm, I was. They would have took it again, I'm pretty sartin, if I'd let 'em, but--but somehow I couldn't do it. No, I couldn't, and I never meant anybody else should be here. Seems funny to you, I don't doubt."

"Why, no, it was your property to do what you pleased with, and I am sure you had a reason for refusing."

"Yes'm. But I ain't ever told anybody what that reason was. I've told Sam a reason, but 'twan't the real one. I--I guess likely I'll tell it to you. I imagine 'twill sound foolish enough. 'Twas just somethin' I heard Colonel Davidson say, that's all."

He paused. Mrs. Armstrong did not speak. After an interval he continued:

"'Twas one day along the last of the season. The Davidsons had company and they'd been in to see the shop and the mills and vanes and one thing or 'nother. They seemed nice, pleasant enough folks; laughed a good deal, but I didn't mind that. I walked out into the yard along with 'em and then, after I left 'em, I stood for a minute on the front step of the shop, with the open door between me and this house here. A minute or so later I heard 'em come into this very room. They couldn't see me, 'count of the door, but I could hear them, 'count of the windows bein' open. And then . . . Huh . . . Oh, well."

He sighed and lapsed into one of his long fits of abstraction. At length Mrs. Armstrong ventured to remind him.

"And then--?" she asked.

"Eh? Oh, yes, ma'am! Well, then I heard one of the comp'ny say: 'I don't wonder you enjoy it here, Ed,' he says. 'That landlord of yours is worth all the rent you pay and more. 'Tain't everybody that has a dime museum right on the premises.' All hands laughed and then Colonel Davidson said: 'I thought you'd appreciate him,' he says. 'We'll have another session with him before you leave. Perhaps we can get him into the house here this evenin'. My wife is pretty good at that, she jollies him along. Oh, he swallows it all; the poor simpleton don't know when he's bein' shown off.'"

Mrs. Armstrong uttered an exclamation.

"Oh!" she cried. "The brute!"

"Yes'm," said Jed, quietly, "that was what he said. You see," with an apologetic twitch of the lip, "it came kind of sudden to me and-- and it hurt. Fact is, I--I had noticed he and his wife was--er-- well, nice and--er--folksy, as you might say, but I never once thought they did it for any reason but just because they--well, liked me, maybe. Course I'd ought to have known better. Fine ladies and gentlemen like them don't take much fancy to dime museum folks."

There was just a trace of bitterness in his tone, the first Mrs. Armstrong had ever noticed there. Involuntarily she leaned toward him.

"Don't, Mr. Winslow," she begged. "Don't think of it again. They must have been beasts, those people, and they don't deserve a moment's thought. And DON'T call them ladies and gentlemen. The only gentleman there was yourself."

Jed shook his head.

"If you said that around the village here," he drawled, "somebody might be for havin' you sent to the asylum up to Taunton. Course I'm much obliged to you, but, honest, you hadn't ought to take the risk."

Mrs. Armstrong smiled slightly, but hers was a forced smile. What she had just heard, told in her guest's quaint language as a statement of fact and so obviously with no thought of effect, had touched her more than any plea for sympathy could have done. She felt as if she had a glimpse into this man's simple, trusting, sensitive soul. And with that glimpse came a new feeling toward him, a feeling of pity--yes, and more than that, a feeling of genuine respect.

He sighed again and rose to go. "I declare," he said, apologetically, "I don't know what I've been botherin' you with all this for. As I said, I've never told that yarn to anybody afore and I never meant to tell it. I--"

But she interrupted him. "Please don't apologize," she said. "I'm very glad you told it to me."

"I cal'late you think it's a queer reason for lettin' this house stand empty all this time."

"No, I think it was a very good one, and Babbie and I are honored to know that your estimate of us is sufficiently high to overcome your prejudice."

"Well, ma'am, I--I guess it's goin' to be all right. If you feel you can get along with me for a landlord I'd ought sartin to be willin' to have you for tenants. Course I don't blame the Davidsons, in one way, you understand, but--"

"I do. I blame them in every way. They must have been unspeakable. Mr. Winslow, I hope you will consider Babbie and me not merely tenants and neighbors, but friends--real friends."

Jed did not reply for at least a minute. Then he said: "I'm afraid you'll be kind of lonesome; my friends are like corn sprouts in a henyard, few and scatterin'."

"So much the better; we shall feel that we belong to select company."

He did not thank her nor answer, but walked slowly on through the dining-room and kitchen, where he opened the door and stepped out upon the grass. There he stood for a moment, gazing at the sky, alternately puckering his lips and opening them, but without saying a word. Mrs. Armstrong and Barbara, who had followed him, watched these facial gymnastics, the lady with astonishment, her daughter with expectant interest.

"I know what he is doing that for, Mamma," she whispered. "It's because he's thinking and don't know whether to whistle or not. When he thinks AWFUL hard he's almost sure to whistle--or sing."

"Hush, hush, Babbie!"

"Oh, he won't hear us. He hardly ever hears any one when he's thinking like that. And see, Mamma, he IS going to whistle."

Sure enough, their guest whistled a few mournful bars, breaking off suddenly to observe:

"I hope there wan't any bones in it."

"Bones in what? What do you mean, Mr. Winslow?" queried Mrs. Armstrong, who was puzzled, to say the least.

"Eh? Oh, I hope there wan't any bones in that mackerel Heman's cat got away with. If there was it might choke or somethin'."

"Good gracious! I shouldn't worry over that possibility, if I were you. I should scarcely blame you for wishing it might choke, after stealing your dinner."

Mr. Winslow shook his head. "That wouldn't do," solemnly. "If it choked it couldn't ever steal another one."

"But you don't WANT it to steal another one, do you?"

"We-ll, if every one it stole meant my havin' as good an afternoon as this one's been, I'd--"

He stopped. Barbara ventured to spur him on.

"You'd what?" she asked.

"I'd give up whittlin' weather vanes and go mackerel-seinin' for the critter's benefit. Well--er--good day, ma'am."

"Good afternoon, Mr. Winslow. We shall expect you again soon. You must be neighborly, for, remember, we are friends now."

Jed was half way across the yard, but he stopped and turned.

"My--my FRIENDS generally call me 'Jed,'" he said. Then, his face a bright red, he hurried into the shop and closed the door. _

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